SecDef says evidence does not rate top award for fallen Marine

A years-long battle to upgrade the posthumous combat award for Sgt. Rafael Peralta to the Medal of Honor appeared to end in defeat Friday, when the Pentagon announced it will not reopen the nomination for the fallen Marine.

The 25-year-old San Diegan was awarded a Navy Cross, the nation’s second highest medal for valor in combat, after he smothered a grenade blast during house-to-house fighting in Fallujah, Iraq in November 2004.

Supporters in Peralta’s hometown, on Capitol Hill and in the Navy have persistently campaigned for the top award, including Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, a Marine combat veteran who submitted additional evidence in support of a Medal of Honor.

The entire California congressional delegation pushed to reopen the nomination, which seems unlikely now that a third defense secretary has declined to upgrade Peralta’s medal.

“Secretary (Chuck) Hagel and the department remain forever grateful to Sgt. Peralta for his selfless service to our nation,” the Pentagon said in a news release.

But an “exhaustive” review of the evidence by Hagel — as well as the armed forces medical examiner, the Defense Department general counsel, the acting undersecretary for personnel and readiness, and several high-ranking military officers — concluded that the totality of evidence in Peralta’s case did not meet the “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” standard for the Medal of Honor, defense officials said.

“The Department of Defense has taken extraordinary measures to ensure Sgt. Peralta’s nomination received full consideration. Three separate secretaries of defense have now examined the case, and each independently concluded the evidence does not support award of the Medal of Honor.”

The decision not to reopen the Medal of Honor nomination “does not detract at all from how (Peralta) served the nation with great honor and distinction,” and it does not cast doubt on his Navy Cross, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Nathan Christensen, a Defense Department spokesman.

Unfair standard?

The Navy Cross citation issued in 2008 said that “without hesitation and with complete disregard for his own personal safety, Sgt. Peralta reached out and pulled the grenade to his body.”

Peralta’s family has refused to accept the Navy Cross medal.

The Navy and Marine Corps had recommended Peralta, an immigrant from Tijuana, for the top award based on seven eyewitnesses who said he scooped the grenade under his body to save nearby Marines.

But a special panel of experts convened by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates to vet discrepancies in eyewitness and forensic evidence concluded that Peralta was probably killed instantly by a bullet wound to the head, making it unlikely that he consciously grabbed the grenade.

All five panel members — two forensic pathologists, a neurosurgeon, a Medal of Honor recipient and a retired Army general — said they were “convinced that the evidence does not support the Medal of Honor.”

Others felt Peralta was held to a tougher standard of proof than the traditional requirement of two eyewitness statements.

Douglas Sterner, an Army veteran of the Vietnam War and curator of the Military Times Hall of Valor, said Peralta is a victim of Pentagon stubbornness.